Sprint previously had stated that they wouldn’t be releasing any new QChat phones. The Motorola V950e technically isn’t a new phone, but does bear a different model number than the V950.

QChat was a technology that Sprint secured exclusive rights to in the United States from Qualcomm. It offers hardware-accelerated Push to Talk sessions that rival the Nextel iDEN network in connection time and quality, and is generally preferred to standard SIP PTT phone software. However, QChat was a market failure; it cost too much to integrate into phones, especially smartphones.

It’s not clear if the V950e is re-using existing stockpiles of the phone, or is a re-tooling designed to allow Sprint to sell the phone well into the future. The only notable difference, according to Sprint, is that the battery has been upgraded from 1100 mAh to 1750 mAh, giving it significantly more talk and standby time.

This re-tooling may be an effort to have options for future wind-downs of the Nextel iDEN network. With Sprint in-talks to potentially switch to LTE and merge with T-Mobile USA, the combined company would then be maintaining five networks: iDEN, GSM, UMTS, CDMA2000, and WiMAX (via Clearwire). It would be logical to conclude that such a joint venture would prompt Sprint to accelerate plans to wind down iDEN quickly, in order to cut costs and staff overlap.

More reinforcement to the notion that the V950e is destined for business iDEN migrations; the V950e is only being sold through business channels at this time, with existing V950 units still being sold to consumers.

Christopher Price is the Founding Editor of PhoneNews.com. Today, he leads the team building Console, Inc. - a new kind of Android™ device. He still likes to pontificate... a lot. You can visit his personal blog at ChristopherPrice.net.

You guys do realize that the Motorola i1 is an Android OS phone that runs on the iDEN network, right? Now, whether there will be an Android CDMA phone with Q-chat is a different matter. There should be.

The article claims that costs were the problem and why Q-chat was doomed. Try again. The real problem was (and remains) that Q-chat is a bandwidth hog. It forces every other non-Q-chat user to experience serious data communication degradation. And that’s where the “cost” of using Q-chat came in. To add Q-chat to a phone is mostly a software upgrade at most…has little to do with hardware actually.

Anyhow, hopefully Sprint will correct its own stupid way of thinking that if it is Nextel, it must suck. After all, there are still millions of people using iDEN…maybe Sprint should expand its own CDMA network in order to overlap that of iDEN…and then issue all current iDEN post-paid users a free handset of the user’s choice in order to migrate over to Sprint CDMA. It really would make the most sense and ultimately would probably be the cheapest way for Sprint to retain the millions of current iDEN users.

“the V950e is only being sold through business channels at this time, with existing V950 units still being sold to consumers.” Not true. I just ordered a V950E through telesales….I’m a consumer, not a business…

Sam, business devices are regularly sold under the counter through Telesales. Of course, if you really want one, you can get one. Sprint just isn’t going to tell you about the device unless you ask for it.

Similarly, you can get Sprint’s Desktop WiMAX Modem if you really want, but… odds are, you’d rather go with Clear and pay the same price without a 2 year contract.

What a haphazard piece of journalism, Mr. Price. There is no evidence that Sprint is “in-talks” to merge with T-Mobile USA. I’m well aware of Dan Hesse’s now infamous “logic” comment, but that certainly is not proof of merger talks.

Actually, Mr. Price what you stated is that Sprint is “in-talks” about a potential merger with T-Mobile USA. Again, there is no proof to that effect. As I recall, Hesse declined comment regarding any merger with T-Mobile. While that obviously isn’t a denial, it certainly isn’t a confirmation either. I am indeed trying my best to “wise up” every day that I am on this Earth. However, I am already sufficiently wise enough not to treat rumor and innuendo as facts…